Ms Jolie went to Athens' main port of Piraeus, where about 4,000 people are waiting either to head north to Greece's closed border with Macedonia, or for a place in rapidly filling official shelters.

Some 44,000 refugees and migrants, the last of the 143,000 who have entered Greece so far from Turkey in smugglers' boats, are trapped in the country because of border closures on the Balkan route to Europe's prosperous heartland. About 12,000 are in the greater Athens area.